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A Not So New Deal for the Homeless
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2016
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- Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2017
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1. The literature on this subject is extensive. For a small sample, see Gordon, Linda, Pitied But Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare (New York, 1994)Google Scholar; Canaday, Margot, The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth Century America (Princeton, 2009)Google Scholar; Mink, Gwendolyn, The Wages of Motherhood: Inequality in the Welfare State, 1917–1942 (Ithaca, 1995)Google Scholar; Dividing Citizens: Gender and Federalism In New Deal Public Policy (Ithaca, 1998); Fox, Cybelle, Three Worlds of Relief: Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State from the Progressive Era to the New Deal (Princeton, 2012)Google Scholar; Morris, Andrew, The Limits of Voluntarism: Charity and Welfare from the New Deal through the Great Society (New York, 2008)Google Scholar.
2. Crouse, Joan M., The Homeless Transient in the Great Depression: New York State, 1929–1941 (New York, 1986); Kenneth Kusmer, Down and Out, On the Road (Oxford, 2002)Google Scholar; Howard, Ella, Homeless: Poverty and Place in Urban America (Philadelphia, 2013).Google Scholar
3. DePastino, Todd, Citizen Hobo: How a Century of Homelessness Changed America (Chicago, 2003).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. Canaday, The Straight State, 94.
5. For a discussion of men and marriage, see Rotundo, Anthony, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York, 1994).Google Scholar
6. Isaac Gurman, “Casework with Homeless Men and Boys,” 1, Folder 332, Box 13, Papers of the Bureau for Men, 1925–82, State Historical Society of Missouri, St. Louis. The bureau used a variety of terms when discussing its clients, but primarily utilized “homeless,” “non-family,” and “unattached.” In this article, I generally use “homeless” and “unattached.”
7. Walter Hoy, “The Care of the Homeless in St. Louis,” The Family, October 1928, 217.
8. For an intellectual history of knowledge about poverty, see Alice O’Connor, Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History (Princeton, 2001).
9. More recently, scholars have examined the connections between expectations of male breadwinning and family courts designed to help deserted women during the Progressive Era. See Willrich, Michael, “Home Slackers: Men, the State, and Welfare in Modern America,” Journal of American History 87, no. 2 (2000)Google Scholar; Igra, Anna, Wives without Husbands: Marriage, Desertion, and Welfare in New York, 1900–1935 (Chapel Hill, 2006)Google Scholar. Some historians have analyzed the relationship between single men and social policy in other countries. Levine-Clark, Marjorie, “The Politics of Preference: Masculinity, Marital Status, and Unemployment Relief in Post–First World War Britain,” Cultural and Social History 7, no. 3 (2010)Google Scholar; Strikwerda, Eric, “‘Married men should, I feel, be treated differently’: Work, Relief, and Unemployed Men on the Urban Canadian Prairie, 1929–32,” Left History 12, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2007)Google Scholar.
10. Kessler-Harris, Alice, In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (Oxford, 2001).Google Scholar
11. For further discussion on how understandings of gendered obligations shaped social policy, primarily for women, see Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity; and Kerber, Linda, No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship (New York, 1999).Google Scholar
12. For the long history of American fears of homeless men, see Kusmer, Down and Out; DePastino, Citizen Hobo; Tim Cresswell, The Tramp in America (London, 2012); Ringenbach, Paul, Tramps and Reformers: The Discovery of Unemployment in New York, 1872–1916 (Westport, Conn., 1973).Google Scholar
13. Crouse, The Homeless Transient, 48, 108.
14. Ibid., 48.
15. Bureau caseworkers were not alone in conceiving resident and transient homeless men in similar terms. Ellery Reed, an expert on homelessness and transiency, argued a similar point as well. See Ellery Reed, Federal Transient Program: An Evaluative Survey, May to June 1934 (New York: Committee on Care of Transient and Homeless, 1934), 92, 94.
16. For a discussion of the tramp scare, see Kusmer, Down and Out; DePastino, Citizen Hobo; Tim Cresswell, The Tramp in America; Paul Ringenbach, Tramps and Reformers.
17. Kusmer, Down and Out, 79.
18. Quoted in Kunzel, Regina, Fallen Women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890–1945 (New Haven, 1993).Google Scholar
19. Crouse, The Homeless Transient, 135.
20. Alma Rattini Vanek, “A History of the St. Louis Provident Association, 1930–1935, During Administration of Public Funds and the Establishment of the Public Agency” (Master’s thesis, Washington University, 1938), Folder 11, Papers of the Family and Children’s Services of Greater St. Louis, 1861–60, State Historical Society of Missouri, St. Louis.
21. The organization’s correspondence files are replete with inquiries and accolades received from colleagues across the country seeking to replicate its program. See Series 4, Correspondence, 1925–79, Papers of the Bureau for Men, 1925–82, State Historical Society of Missouri, St. Louis. Additionally, see Wilson, Robert, Community Planning for Homeless Men and Boys: The Experience of Sixteen Cities in the Winter of 1930–31 (New York, 1931).Google Scholar
22. Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problem Girls, 38–39, 43–44; For casework in St. Louis, see History of the St. Louis Provident Association, 1860–1930 by Dorothy LeMond, 1933, Folder 10, Box 1, Papers of the Family and Children’s Services of Greater St. Louis, 1861–60, State Historical Society of Missouri, St. Louis.
23. Quoted in Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problem Girls, 41.
24. For examples, see Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problem Girls; Gordon, Pitied But Not Entitled; Mink, The Wages of Motherhood.
25. “Survey of the Bureau for Homeless Men,” 1932, Folder 93, Box 4, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
26. “Frank J. Bruno,” Social Welfare History Project, http://www.socialwelfarehistory.com/people/bruno-frank-j/ (accessed 25 July 2015).
27. It is not clear how he determined this total. Hoy, “The Care of the Homeless in St. Louis,” 214–15.
28. “Meeting Minutes, Committee on Homeless Men and Street Begging,” 20 September 1923, Folder 9, Box 1, Papers of the Bureau; To Family Welfare Association of Baltimore from T. A. Hendricks, 27 July 1931, Folder 17, Box 1, Papers of the Bureau; To Frank Bruno from St. Louis Community Council, 24 April 1926, Folder 9, Box 1, Papers of the Bureau.
29. Manfred Lilliefors, “Social Casework and the Homeless Man,” The Family, 29 January 1929, 291–92.
30. Roy Gates, “Group Treatment Versus Case Treatment,” The Family, February 1922.
31. Roy Gates, “The Problem of Homeless Men,” The Family, June 1921, 86.
32. For more on conceptions of poverty during this period, see O’Connor, Poverty Knowledge.
33. Gurman, Casework With Homeless Men and Boys, 8.
34. Ibid., 4.
35. Talk on Beggars, 1 December 1928, Folder 4, Box 1, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
36. Ibid.
37. For the centrality of the interview to casework, see Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problem Girls, 41, 65–66; Colcord, Joanna, “A Study of the Techniques of the Social Case Work Interview,” Social Forces 7, no. 4 (June 1929).Google Scholar
38. “Statistical Analysis of Non-Family Men of Relief” (St. Louis: Bureau for Men, 1937), 23, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?title_id=133&filepath=%2Fdocs%2Fpublications%2Fstlbmen%2Fstlbm_nfmenrelief_1937.pdf#scribd-open (accessed 26 July 2015).
39. “‘Exhibit III’ from Survey of the Bureau for Homeless Men,” 1932, Folder 93, Box 4, Papers of the Bureau.
40. “Annual Report of the Citizen’s Anti-Begging Committee,” 1932, Folder 78, Box 4, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
41. Gurman, “Casework with Homeless Men and Boys,” 6.
42. Ibid., 8.
43. “Cases to Form Basis for Publicity by Council on Relief,” Case 33, Folder 84, Box 4, Papers of the Bureau.
44. Gates, “Group Treatment Versus Case Treatment,” 244.
45. Gurman, “Casework with Homeless Men and Boys,” 13.
46. Ibid., 11.
47. Ibid., 13.
48. Ibid., 40–42.
49. “Analysis of Cases for 1926–30,” Folder 16, Box 1, Papers of the Bureau for Men; Monthly Report, March 1931, Folder 22, Box 1, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
50. “Statistical Analysis of Non-Family Men of Relief” (St. Louis: Bureau for Men, 1937), 32.
51. “Analysis of Cases for 1926–30.”
52. Frank Higbie does an excellent job tracing the labor migration patterns in the Midwest. Higbie, Frank, Indispensable Outcasts: Hobo Workers and Community in the American Midwest: 1880–1930 (Urbana, 2003).Google Scholar
53. Hoy, “The Care of the Homeless in St. Louis,” 214. For more information on seasonal labor in the Midwest, see Higbie, Indispensable Outcasts.
54. Gurman, “Casework with Homeless Men and Boys,” 13.
55. “Survey of the Bureau for Homeless Men,” 1932, Folder 93, Box 4, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
56. See, “Appendix I,” in Walkowitz, Daniel J., Working with Class: Social Workers and the Politics of Middle-Class Identity (Chapel Hill, 1999).Google Scholar
57. Bruno, The Theory of Social Work, 339.
58. “Some Observations Concerning the Boys’ Department,” 15 February 1933, Folder 84, Box 4, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
59. Woodruff, Clinton Rodgers, ed., National Municipal Review (Baltimore, 1912), 323.Google Scholar
60. Bruno, The Theory of Social Work, 348, 426.
61. To Sydney Maestre from Walter Hoy, 18 March 1927, Folder 46, Box 2, Papers of the Bureau for Men; To Marion LaSater from Walter Hoy, 9 March 1932, Folder 51, Box 2, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
62. Wilson, Community Planning for Homeless Men and Boys, 73–74; Survey of the Bureau for Homeless Men, 1932, Folder 93, Box 4, Papers of the Bureau.
63. “Some Observations Concerning the Boys’ Department,” 15 February 1933.
64. “Rules and Regulations of the Municipal Lodging House,” 1926, Folder 45, Box 2, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
65. “Statistical Analysis of Non-Family Men of Relief” (St. Louis: Bureau for Men, 1937), 13–14.
66. “Annual Report for 1933,” 21, Folder 16, Box 1, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
67. Crouse, The Homeless Transient, 127.
68. Charlotte Ring Fusz, “Origin and Development of the Saint Louis Relief Administration, 1929–1937” (Master’s thesis, St. Louis University, 1938), 9–10. By July 1933, city funds financed over 90 percent of the bureau’s expenditures. “Analysis of Monthly Statistics of Citizens’ Committee Agencies in St. Louis and St. Louis County,” Folder 88, Box 4, Papers of the Bureau for Men, 1925–82, State Historical Society of Missouri, St. Louis.
69. Aside from Mayor Victor Miller and the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, the presidents of the Catholic Charities, the Jewish Federation, the Community Fund and Community Council, the Lutheran Charities Association, and the “chairmen of other private relief giving agencies” formed the main executive body. Fusz, “Origin and Development,” 10–11.
70. “Budget Analysis,” 1929–33, Folder 88, Box 4, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
71. “Annual Report of the Bureau for Men,” 1933, Folder 16, Box 1, Papers of the Bureau for Men; Rose, Nancy E., Put to Work: The WPA and Public Employment in the Great Depression (New York, 2009), 47.Google Scholar
72. Higbie, Indispensable Outcasts, 176.
73. Ibid., 178.
74. “Meeting Minutes of the CCRE Technical Committee,” 7 July 1932, Folder 114, Box 5, Papers of the Bureau for Men; “Call for Meeting of the Single Men of Community Kitchen and Municipal Lodging House,” 25 January 1932, vol. 2, Papers of the Bureau for Men; “15 Arrested in Free Food Disturbance,” 16 December 1932, St. Louis Globe Democrat; “15 Arrested in Row at Café for Jobless,” 15 December 1932, St. Louis Post Dispatch.
75. “Notice,” 2 February 1933, vol. 2, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
76. Reed, Federal Transient Program, 16.
77. McElvaine, Robert, The Great Depression: American, 1929–1941 (New York, 1984), 151.Google Scholar
78. Quoted in Crouse, The Homeless Transient, 133.
79. Crouse, The Homeless Transient, 135, Ellery Reed, Federal Transient Program, 52.
80. Canaday, The Straight State, 103.
81. Reed, Federal Transient Program, 28, 32–33.
82. Quoted in Crouse, The Homeless Transient, 135.
83. “State Conference on Transients,” 13 September 1933, Folder 313, Box 13, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
84. “A Tentative Program for the Care of Non-Residents of the State of Missouri,” 19 September 1933, Folder 313, Box 13, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
85. Reed, Ellery, Federal Transient Program: An Evaluation Survey, May to July, 1934 (New York: Committee on Care of Transient and Homeless), 45Google Scholar; John McKinsey also stressed the importance of rehabilitation to the program: “Implicit all through the various forms of material aid was the idea of rehabilitation, expressed in the formal purpose as prevention of continued mobility.” John McKinsey, “Transient Men in Missouri: A Descriptive Analysis of Transient Men and of the Activities of Agencies Dealing with Them” (Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri, 1940), 233.
86. Reed, Federal Transient Program, 47.
87. “A Tentative Program for the Care of Non-Residents of the State of Missouri.” Gwinner’s committee was not alone in adopting casework. New York’s transient program also employed “adequately trained casework personnel.” Quoted in Crouse, The Homeless Transient, 135.
88. “Budget Analysis, 1929–33,” Folder 88, Box 4, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
89. McKinsey, Transient Men in Missouri, 185–86.
90. “A Tentative Program for the Care of Non-Residents of the State of Missouri.”
91. Ibid.
92. Ibid.
93. Ibid.
94. Myron Gwinner, “Missourians on the Move: A Study of Intra-State Transient Men and Boys Applying at St. Louis April, 1934–August, 1935,” 1938, Bureau for Homeless Men, 1, http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/publication/?pid=130 (accessed 4 June 2013).
95. Ibid., 16.
96. Ibid., 20–21; Only 27.5 percent of the men returned to their homes because of the program, however. An additional 6.5 percent of the men returned home of their own accord, 21.
97. Ibid., 17.
98. “Meeting Minutes of the Transient Advisory Committee,” 17 November 1933, Folder 311, Box 13, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
99. McKinsey, Transient Men in Missouri, 244.
100. Reed, Federal Transient Program, 58.
101. Margot Canaday argued that, though the CCC made men send a large chunk of their money to their families, the rule was applied loosely. It nonetheless allowed the program to be seen as respectable. Canaday, The Straight State, 93.
102. Circular Letter, A-75 and Supplement A-75, February 1935, State Social Security Commission, Jefferson City, Missouri. Quoted in McKinsey, Transient Men in Missouri, 245.
103. McKinsey, Transient Men in Missouri, 243–44.
104. Skilled men received three dollars a week, semiskilled two dollars a week, and unskilled one dollar a week. McKinsey, Transient Men in Missouri, 231.
105. Ibid., 247.
106. Ibid., 238.
107. Ibid., 242.
108. Ellery Reed, Federal Transient Program, 47.
109. Crouse, The Homeless Transient, 148, 158.
110. To Peter Kasius from Myron Gwinner, 31 October 1934, Folder 111, Box 5, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
111. “Food Report from Transient Camp 1,” 4–10 January 1934, Folder 311, Box 13, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
112. To Peter Kasius from Myron Gwinner, 31 October 1934, Folder 111, Box 5, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
113. “Meeting Minutes of the Committee on Care for Transients,” 26 April 1934, Folder 313, Box 13, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
114. Reed also noted that state programs could have done a much better job selling the program to the public. Reed, Federal Transient Program, 43.
115. Frank Bane, an FTP official in Chicago, wrote: “We are getting buried by complaints of all types and varieties about the transient order.” Quoted in Canaday, The Straight State, 128; Reed, Federal Transient Program, 35.
116. Quoted in Crouse, The Homeless Transient, 149.
117. McKinsey, Transient Men in Missouri, 239–40.
118. “Meeting Minutes of the Committee on Care for Transients,” 26 April 1934.
119. Ellery Reed, Federal Transient Program, 43.
120. “Meeting Minutes of the Committee on Care for Transients, 26 April 1934.
121. Ibid.
122. McElvaine, The Great Depression, 151–52.
123. Quoted in Crouse, The Homeless Transient, 262.
124. Ibid., 205.
125. Ibid., 206.
126. “Monthly Statistical Report of the St. Louis Relief Administration,” Folder 23, Box 1, Papers of the Bureau for Men.
127. McKinsey, Transient Men in Missouri, 190.
128. Ibid., 192.
129. Crouse, The Homeless Transient, 210, 255.
130. Canaday, The Straight State, 130; for further discussion of how the breadwinner ideal structured the WPA, see Amenta, Edwin, Bold Relief: Institutional Politics and the Origins of American Social Policy (Princeton, 1998)Google Scholar.
131. Quoted in Crouse, The Homeless Transient, 212.
132. McKinsey, Transient Men in Missouri, 263.
133. Ibid., 264.
134. Canaday, The Straight State, 132; Crouse, The Homeless Transient, 263.
135. Crouse, The Homeless Transient, 266–67.
136. To Charles Dodd from Myron Gwinner, 18 August 1938, Folder 57, Box 3, Papers of the Bureau.
137. The “new alignment” is discussed in Morris, Andrew, The Limits of Voluntarism: Charity and Welfare from the New Deal Through the Great Society (New York, 2008).Google Scholar
138. For more on homelessness in the postwar era, see Howard, Homeless; DePastino, Citizen Hobo.
139. Gary Morse, “Homeless People in St. Louis: A Mental Health Program Evaluation, Field Study, and Follow-up Investigation” (St. Louis: Department of Mental Health, 1985).